Hell in a Cell 2015: Did it live up to expectations?

The Hell in a Cell pay-per-view is now in the books which saw superstars such as Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar pick up victories inside the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. There was a lot of hype surrounding the event and rightfully so as the WWE ensured this was an event you simply couldn’t miss.

The Undertaker was in action which – outside of WrestleMania – is quite rare nowadays and Lesnar is also a massive attraction and they sell tickets. The Hell in a Cell structure itself is something we don’t see quite often either and there was the element of surprise in the John Cena United States open challenge.

With so much hype building towards the event the WWE needed to make sure the event went down as a success, but like every pay-per-view not everything went down as a positive.

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THE BAD

One of the bad points from the night was the actual pre-show match where Neville, Cesaro, and Dolph Ziggler defeated King Barrett, Rusev, and Sheamus.

You can’t take anything away from Cesaro, but the match itself was pointless considering how we saw the exact same match a week earlier at Monday Night Raw. There was nothing on the line and nothing to make the fans want to invest in the actual show, especially those that hadn’t purchased the Network yet.

There was no championship on the line, no real stipulation and we had to watch a popular star in Cesaro compete in another pre-show, the Money in the Bank holder is also on the pre-show and the WWE aren’t helping themselves by making the King of the Ring even more irrelevant.

The only positives from that were the Stardust Section in the crowd and the fact that this ‘feud’ won’t advance any further with Tyler Breeze turning his attention to Ziggler.

I felt the order of the matches were pretty bad on the night as well, the opening bout of the night was good as it set the tone for the remainder of the night, but it was clear the crowd lost interest in certain matches.

I’d say the Tag Team Championship match could have been bumped up and shown earlier, but most of all the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match should have gone on before the main event.

It’s the biggest championship in the WWE and the most coveted prize, it’s difficult to understand why the Intercontinental Championship match went on after Rollins vs. Kane but it was definitely the wrong decision.

Another negative from the event was the Kevin Owens vs. Ryback match itself.

It’s clear that they don’t really have any chemistry in the ring, most of the entertainment we have seen has come from Owens’ Twitter account where he continues to troll Ryback, nothing else of any relevance has happened.

It’s not exactly their fault as they didn’t have time to put on a great match, but it still wasn’t enough to go on before the main event.

THE GOOD

The night wasn’t all bad though as the main show kicked off with a huge surprise as Zeb Colter introduced the returning Alberto Del Rio to answer Cena’s open challenge.

For a short while, now fans have been trying to guess who the mystery challenger could be with big names bring thrown around but Del Rio wasn’t one that fans thought could actually happen.

I thought it was a fantastic start to the night and it was great to see Del Rio return after his controversial dismissal and it was even better to see him win a championship upon his return.

Whilst I feel the pre-show was pointless, Cesaro definitely had a great night with plenty and it was clear he was one of the most popular stars on the entire show.

He had his usual incredible support behind him and that one great sequence of him hitting uppercuts on the outside was also fantastic and it proved to be more of a reason why Cesaro does deserve more in the WWE and hopefully Vince McMahon takes notice of that.

Bray Wyatt and Roman Reigns definitely stepped up and concluded their feud in great fashion in an old-fashioned brawl. For me, however, the biggest positive coming from Wyatt was at the end of the show as they ambushed The Undertaker.

It’s not something the fans expected, we thought The Undertaker would get his moment in the limelight and walk off like he did at WrestleMania XXX. Eventually, they interrupted and took him out and carried him away which sets up a match for Survivor Series.

I think even though Wyatt lost to Reigns earlier in the night, this definitely made him look strong by the end of the night as it opens up so many more possibilities.

Finally, the main event definitely helped make Hell in a Cell a good event. The match between The Undertaker and Lesnar had pretty much everything you could want from a Hell in a Cell match in 2015.

There were weapons, use of the cell, Lesnar destroying the ring as well as blood. I think the story that was told throughout the match was fantastic and the manner in which Lesnar won was also good and we finally came full circle from WrestleMania XXX where Lesnar finally established himself as the conqueror.

All in all, I believe Hell in a Cell did live up to expectations, although there were some questionable booking decisions on the night the positives outweighed the negatives by far.

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